War in Libya

[Neopergoss]

What is your opinion about the US led war in Libya?

I think the withdrawal of the Arab League's support said it all. We coerce the UN to authorize this war, conduct it without Congressional approval, and of course we go much further than a no-fly zone, which was the stated goal. If American policy is truly driven by humanitarian impulses, why have we swallowed our tongues about what is going on in Yemen and Bahrain? Why aren't we getting involved in the Ivory Coast? Well, see these (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-the-mideast-useful-and-non-useful-tyrants/2011/03/21/ABeWu38_story.html) articles (http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/03/21/the_libyan_oil_war_connection) for pretty good explanations. Basically, the US has had a very close relationship with the leaders of Saudi Arabia (which has committed troops to quelling the uprising in Bahrain) and Yemen, and also Libya has oil.

Incidentally, Libya was starting to become friendly with the US after disarming their weapons of mass destruction. If they hadn't, an attack of this kind wouldn't be possible. What kind of message does this send to other countries that might be thinking about disarming?

[Daytripper]

Doesn't seem quite the same to me. In Libya a civil war or a people VS army war was already going on. The army was using tanks and planes. The population quite simply asked for these to be taken out. This is honestly something I had never seen before. I say if the population really wants it, intervention is fair game. Which is why I' m far more sceptical about the previous wars in the Middle east. I do agree it needs to be a quick and decisive operation. Blow up the military and get out of there. If the people really do not want the regime, they can handle it once that's out of the way.

You could be right about other parts of the world needing help as well, but that doesn't change the situation in Libya.

[LongDono]

For one I don't even call this a war. Yes military action is being taken but we still remain neutral. ( Yes neutral, get over it. We bomb threats to the people and what we need to enforce a no fly zone to further protect the people. )
I know we may not "feel" neutral but actions are actions, we are stopping slaughter, nothing more nothing less and thus neutral. Even if Obama said we want whats his face gone our actions are that of a 3rd neutral party making sure innocents don't get slaughtered. Yes this has benifited the rebles but I still see it as neutral. I see 3 groups, libya oppression, libya rebles, and innocent people. Saving the innocent will just have a side effect of helping the rebles.

Though I have heard but can not confirm right now that weapons are being given to the rebles through Egypt. That would push this past neutral if true.

[Neopergoss]

You could be right about other parts of the world needing help as well, but that doesn't change the situation in Libya.

The point I'm really trying to make is that we're not there because they need our help; we're there to promote our own interests. If we were there to help people then that begs the question of why we don't help people in many other situations. I heard a good report yesterday on the way home that explained it pretty well.

...there were considerations in the Libyan case: the isolation of the regime, the fact that it represents a relatively weak military force with very few allies in the region, the fact that it borders on the Mediterranean and gives rise to the possibility of major migration flows to Europe, should there be a long protracted conflict there, and that it sits atop energy sources that would destabilize energy markets. I mean, I think these are all important considerations that, frankly, we have to concede are among the motivations. That’s not to say that any intervention is bad because of mixed motivations; that’s not the argument. But one has to be clear-eyed about why it is that this coalition has been willing to proceed in this instance and is not, on the other hand, prepared to intervene, let alone forcefully, in any way, really, politically, with response to the repression that we’re seeing in Bahrain and Yemen.

I also take issue with the fact that Congress didn't authorize this and the way the US has dishonestly portrayed this war as having broad international support. The open-ended nature of the UN authorization bothers me as well. I'm not categorically against the idea of intervening, and I find it somewhat reassuring and actually surprising that there haven't been any civilian casualties reported yet as a result of our strikes. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

[Daytripper]

People are never happy. First they were all like ''Why was there no action sooner'' and now it's ''shouldnt have done it''

The internal US problems are not relevant for me. Our government did follow the proper channels, but of couse, by then the US/UK/France had already done most of the bombings.

[Five In One]

I think this is more than just war. It's just the beginning.

I believe we are (or America is) spreading our troops too thinly, and I expect that the U.S. will be attacked in some way before the year's out due to the poor leadership of our president, our economic situation, and our obvious military weakness from a lack of troops at home.

[Neopergoss]

Interesting. So who is going to attack the US? Terrorists? Even with our military spread thin, we don't face any real existential threats now that the cold war is over. Our defense budget is roughly as much as the rest of the world's combined. Will it be like Red Dawn, but with terrorists?

Just so you know, I agree with you that our current president's judgment has been quite poor, particularly with respect to the "war on terrorism." From the tone of your response, it may surprise you to hear that his approach on terrorism is pretty much the same as the previous president's. In fact, he quite often receives praise from former Bush officials, many of whom he kept on in his administration (which is a perfect reflection of how bad he's doing).

[Five In One]

Interesting. So who is going to attack the US? Terrorists? Even with our military spread thin, we don't face any real existential threats now that the cold war is over. Our defense budget is roughly as much as the rest of the world's combined. Will it be like Red Dawn, but with terrorists?

Well, with all the unrest and revolutions and the like over in the Middle East, it's hard to say. I think it's too unstable in that area to be certain of just about anything, but with all the tension over there, somebody somewhere's bound to snap. The best thing, in my opinion, to do would be to project positive images of our country to "soften up" the public in the Middle East, but I don't have much faith that "Mr. Obama" (Why does nobody call him Mr. President?) will do this, intentionally or not. The most likely scenario I see is that he'll do the opposite.

My biggest fear right now is that someone will send out an EMP over the U.S. and completely shut down the electronic devices we have integrated into our everyday lives (Too much so, if you ask me--but that's for another topic).

As for Red Dawn, I'm not exactly sure what that is. Could you explain it to me?

Just so you know, I agree with you that our current president's judgment has been quite poor, particularly with respect to the "war on terrorism." From the tone of your response, it may surprise you to hear that his approach on terrorism is pretty much the same as the previous president's. In fact, he quite often receives praise from former Bush officials, many of whom he kept on in his administration (which is a perfect reflection of how bad he's doing).

I actually didn't know this. It's quite interesting, as there's a few more bits of information here I can pick up each time I re-read this.

Still, I'm not exactly sure how well President Bush did with the war on terrorism either (I tend to stay neutral with him, since I only really got into politics since the last election), and Mr. Obama's similar approach might not be the best one today. But who knows, really? Doing things the same never really makes headlines.

[Neopergoss]

I seem to get involved in a lot of these things where we keep quoting each other. I'm going to post in the thread you just created, because it's more relevant to that topic. I don't want to go to far OT again (Daxx has warned me before).

[nilsieboy]

i think it's more then a war, and also not the first country were this's going to happen (look at multiple countries over there)

[Neopergoss]

President Obama has signed secret order authorizing covert support for Libyan rebels, Reuters learns

What ever happened to protecting civilians? Now it sounds like we're giving arms to one side in a conflict...

[Neopergoss]

I found an interesting article about this war today. (http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-14/bostonglobe/29418371_1_rebel-stronghold-civilians-rebel-positions) The fact that we're still there and we continue to increase our involvement, including the use of drones made infamous in Pakistan and Afganistan, makes the question of how we got into this mess all the more important, which is what the article addresses.

EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya.

edit: For the sake of completeness, it should probably be mentioned somewhere in this thread that our goals in Libya have explicitly changed since the last post from "protecting civilians but nothing more" to regime change ("we won't leave until Gaddafi is out").